Next to an article in this week’s New Yorker about the digitization of books there is an ad for the European Beret. You know the one. I stopped reading the article and gazed at the beret model. Black, navy, brown, red, camel, or gray? I thought. This simple array of colors comforted me. I thought about sending a check via mail to Oregon (hardly the place you’d imagine as a source of European berets), and quietly awaiting the package at home in Massachusetts. I imagined myself trudging over a snowdrift with my dog, red beret flopped cheerfully over my head as the winter wind smacked my cheeks.
I have always wanted a beret, since the last time they were cool (the eighties, I was 7). I finally got a cute black one from H&M last year, but I can’t wear it because it is wool felt and makes my forehead miserable - and you just have to wear a beret tipped jauntily over one side of your forehead.
You just do.
It’s pretty hilarious that they advertise “European berets” in the New Yorker. It’s just too perfect (is it next to an ad for the collected discography of Philip Glass and Italian Barolo?).
I also own 2 berets, one black and one… raspberry. yes. Don’t tell anyone. I only wear them when I’m incognito pretending to be french and arty.